1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to an air hypocaust structure for cooling and/or heating a dwelling. More particularly, the present invention relates to an air hypocaust structure, which is installed on an insulating material mounted on a floor so as to cool and/or heat a dwelling using cold or hot air. The air hypocaust structure includes a base plate provided with projections positioned along an edge thereof at regular intervals, an upper plate integrally provided with a plurality of support legs each having a hole at an end thereof and corresponding in position to the projections of the base plate, and a plurality of guide plates positioned between the upper plate and base plate in such a way that the upper ends of the guide plates are fixed into recess parts of the upper plate and bases provided at the lower ends of the guide plates come into contact with an upper side of the base plate. When the cold or hot air flows between the upper plate and base plate, the current of the cold or hot air is controlled by the guide plates which are arranged as desired.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a dwelling having a hypocaust system is heated by hot water flowing through a pipe installed in a floor, and cooled by an air conditioner.
However, if the pipe for allowing the hot water to flow therethrough is antiquated, they are easily blocked or corroded, and leak. Furthermore, when the pipe is installed in the floor, a large amount of concrete must be used to cover the pipe so as to protect the pipe from an external impact, thus a concrete layer surrounding the pipe must be thick, thereby reducing the heat transfer efficiency of the hypocaust system. To increase the heat transfer efficiency through the concrete layer, the thickness of the concrete layer surrounding the pipe must be thin. However, when the thickness of the concrete layer is thin, the pipe may be easily broken by the external impact, and thus a lot of labor and repair costs are needed to repair the broken pipe.
The present invention improves Korean Invention Registration No. 0309710, entitled “method for constructing heating and cooling system” and filed by and allowed to the inventor of the present invention, in which a heat transfer rate through a concrete layer is slow and the heat dissipation through the concrete layer is considerable because a part of the concrete layer positioned in a recess part of an uneven panel constituting the hypocaust structure is thick. Furthermore, in Korean Invention Registration No. 0309710, entitled “method for constructing heating and cooling system”, a cold or hot air current flows linearly in the air hypocaust structure. The improvement, accomplished by the present invention, is to selectively change a flow direction of a cold or hot air current in the hypocaust structure.